Inside Policy Talks

Canada’s bureaucracy is very good at “self-diagnosis of its problems” but “what it's very bad at is treating those symptoms,” says a retired veteran public servant who spent years working at the centre of government.

Jean-Guy Forgeron, who served as chief of staff to the clerk of the privacy council, and held key roles in other ministries like Fisheries and Oceans, says this means that when it comes to reforming the public service, the initiative must come from “the top.”

“And when I mean the top, I mean the prime minister of Canada,” says Forgeron.

Public service reform is a critical issue at a time when the federal bureaucracy has ballooned, and Ottawa is also being called on to play a key role in initiatives like getting major national infrastructure projects across the finish line.

The federal public service went from about 257,000 employees in 2015 to a peak of almost 368,000 in 2024. It has subsequently fallen. Treasury Board put the number at roughly 345,000 in March 2026, and Ottawa says it aims to drop it to around 330,000 by 2029.

To discuss where the public service is headed, and if it’s well positioned to deliver on the key national projects presently on its radar, Forgeron joins Inside Policy Talks.

On the podcast, he tells Peter Copeland, acting director of domestic policy at MLI, that these staffing numbers are “a symptom of a disease that we should be worried about.”

He said the best way to address this challenge is with a program review like the one carried out in the 1990s by the government of then-prime minister Jean Chrétien. Instead of levelling across-the-board cuts, such a review would focus on determining what government should and should not be doing, says Forgeron. Reductions could then be made accordingly.

Allowing male prisoners into what used to be female-only spaces has fundamentally “changed the landscape of women's prisons,” says Heather Mason, a former federal inmate turned advocate for women’s sex-based rights.

Mason’s time in correctional institutions has given her first-hand knowledge of a jarring reality: that biological males in Canada are allowed to self-identify as women and then serve their time in women’s prisons – even when these men are convicted sex offenders who have not undergone any surgical changes related to the female identity they claim.

Mason knows from experience why this poses such a grave danger to the women incarcerated in these institutions. Female inmates are an exceptionally vulnerable population. Many have histories of experiencing domestic violence, sexual abuse, and coercive control at the hands of men.

That’s why an organization that Mason helped to co-found, Canadian Women’s Sex-Based Rights (CAWSBAR), is pushing back. The group has launched a federal court case challenging the policy that gives male inmates free rein to enter women’s prisons based solely on self-identification.

To share her first-hand experience and discuss the coming legal battle, Mason joins Inside Policy Talks.

On the podcast, she tells Peter Copeland, acting director of domestic policy at MLI, that for as long as the current policy continues, female inmates in Canada will be retraumatized and revictimized when they are incarcerated alongside men.

Canada has been “using subsidies as a substitute to help solve our competitiveness problem,” says economist Jerome Gessaroli.

He called this approach “wrong,” “inefficient,” and “expensive.”

Gessaroli offered his observations as he reflected on the state of investment in Canada, in the wake of the recent high-profile investment summit the federal government hosted in Toronto. He said the summit was a good idea, but its impact will depend on whether it actually helps advance some projects that might otherwise not have made it across the finish line.

For years, business investment in Canada has been weak, productivity growth has lagged, and affordability has suffered as a result. So, what’s been holding investment back?

To unpack this question, Gessaroli, an MLI senior fellow and former professor of economics at the BC Institute of Technology, joins Inside Policy Talks.

He tells Peter Copeland, acting director of domestic policy at MLI, that in recent years Ottawa has been too quick to use taxpayer money to paper over Canada’s issues with attracting capital for key projects.

“What government often classifies as a market failure is not a market failure. It's a policy failure,” says Gessaroli.

In 1985, a Supreme Court of Canada decision (B.C. Motor Vehicles) about driving with a suspended licence helped transform Section 7 of Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms into a powerful tool of judicial review. But did the Court decision go too far?

Section 7 protects life, liberty, and security of the person, but says these rights may only be limited in accordance with the “principles of fundamental justice.” In B.C. Motor Vehicles, the Supreme Court expanded the meaning of those principles beyond procedural fairness, opening the door to greater judicial scrutiny of the substance of legislation itself.

Since then, Section 7 has played a central role in cases involving prostitution, assisted suicide and euthanasia, supervised drug consumption, and more recently, disputes over homeless encampments and bike lanes. What began as a relatively narrow Charter provision has become an important source of judicial power over public policy.

This week, Mark Mancini, assistant professor of law at Thompson Rivers University and a Senior Fellow at MLI, and Asher Honickman, a civil, constitutional, and public law litigator in Toronto, join MLI's Deputy Director of Domestic Policy, Peter Copeland, on Inside Policy Talks to discuss the landmark case and its lasting impact on Canadian constitutional law.

Western societies face a growing crisis with a gradual waning of trust, social cohesion, and shared norms. But is something deeper happening to the cultural foundations that make free societies possible? As these norms weaken, individual desires are increasingly placed above social obligations while common identities are deconstructed and traditional sources of authority are treated as oppressive.

Quebec political thinker and author Étienne-Alexandre Beauregard describes this process as “anti-civilisation”, a gradual erosion of the social and cultural capital that makes higher-order cooperation and a healthy society possible. The result is a greater atomization of society, declining trust in institutions, cultural fragmentation, and growing conflict between elites and ordinary citizens.

Can this process be reversed? Beauregard proposes a new “fusionism” and a genuine political centre grounded in the nation and the social bonds that hold it together.

This week, Étienne-Alexandre Beauregard, a researcher at Cardus and former speechwriter and strategic-planning adviser in the office of Quebec's premier, François Legault, joins MLI's Deputy Director of Domestic Policy, Peter Copeland, on Inside Policy Talks to discuss his new book, Anti-Civilization: The Collapse of Society and the Case for the Common Good.

Critics of DEI have long warned that demographic-based hiring requirements can come at the expense of merit and academic excellence.

In a recent MLI paper, The equity excellence trade-off: A study of EDI in the Canada Research Chairs Program, senior fellow Eric Kaufmann, alongside coauthors Leif Rasmussen and Jonah Davids, examines the publication records, citation measures, and other indicators of research productivity among Canada Research Chairs before and after the introduction of DEI hiring requirements.

Kaufmann joins MLI's Peter Copeland on Inside Policy Talks to explore his findings and discuss what they mean for the future of Canada's universities.

Canada's dairy industry is one of the most protected sectors of the Canadian economy. But is that protection holding the industry back?

While Canada's dairy sector has long benefited from policies designed to protect farmers and maintain stable prices, critics argue that these measures are limiting competition, innovation, and opportunities for growth. As dairy industries in other countries become more competitive, Canada's risks falling further behind.

What is holding Canada's dairy industry back? And can Canada find a better balance between protecting producers and encouraging a more competitive, dynamic sector?

This week, Sylvain Charlebois, professor and researcher of food distribution and policy at Dalhousie University and former dean of its Faculty of Management, joins MLI's Peter Copeland on Inside Policy Talks to discuss the challenges facing Canada's dairy industry, the weaknesses of the current system, and how protectionist measures like fair pricing may be limiting its potential.

Latvia is home to Canada's largest overseas military deployment, with more than 2,000 members of the Canadian Armed Forces serving on NATO's eastern flank.

Why are Canadians there? Why should Canadians care?

As Russia's war against Ukraine continues into another year the world has become more dangerous, more divided, and less predictable. 

In response, Canada has made one of its most significant international military commitments in decades. Through Operation REASSURANCE, Canadian soldiers are leading NATO's multinational brigade in Latvia, working alongside allies to strengthen collective defence and deter aggression.

This week Lieutenant-Colonel Joel Maley, Acting Commander of Task Force Latvia, joins MLI's Christopher Coates on Inside Policy Talks.

Special episode: Peter Copeland, acting director of domestic policy at MLI, sat down last month with eminent Canadian political scientists Rainer Knopff and Ted Morton.

25 years ago Morton and Knopff's seminal book, The Charter Revolution and the Court Party, offered an important counterpoint to the otherwise prevailing view that the Charter was an unmitigated good for Canadian society.

The discussion took place as part a broader conference entitled Reflections on the Charter Revolution in Canada at the University of Calgary's School of Public Policy.

By almost every material measure life has become safer, richer, and more convenient... so why do many people seem more anxious, lonely, and unhappy?

We often explain this malaise in economic or psychological terms but Carl Trueman argues that its deepest cause is spiritual: Western societies have rejected the belief that human beings have a given nature that dictates what is good for us.

Our understanding of the human person shapes how we approach family, technology, education, medicine, and the role of government... its reflected in the most basic orientation that we take to policy issues. 

Carl Trueman, a Professor at Grove City College, is the author of several best selling books including The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self and The Desecration of Man.